This website is a collection of horror stories, news reports and other information addressing problems with Paypal, Inc..

PayPal Warning

While we do not have the resources to verify each and every complaint we receive, we do believe that all reports posted here are true based on our own experience with Paypal and the growing number of corroborating horror stories we receive every day. The main subject of the majority of these horror stories is the following:

Your Paypal account can be frozen at any time, without advance notice, leaving you without your money for months (if not forever), and there isn't much you can do about it.If you would like to submit your own PayPal horror story, we would be more than happy to post it for everyone to read, providing that it is truthful and void of inappropriate language. Please feel free to submit your story by clicking Here

How Does PayPal Make Money With My Money?

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, there are approx. 100,000 complaints outstanding at PayPal (Are any of these yours?). In many instances disputes can run on for months leaving people frustrated and out of pocket as they are unable to access their accounts. So what happens to the millions of dollars tied up in frozen accounts and disputes? Well, here is a clip from the San Francisco Chronicle that basically sums it up:

U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose refused to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks class-action status on behalf of thousands of PayPal customers nationwide. A common allegation is that the company brushes off or stalls customer grievances for months and meanwhile freezes the customer's account and pockets the interest (So that's how they make their money!). No wonder they freeze so many accounts!

PayPal Fraud & Privacy Violation

Writer Wishes To Remain Anonymous

Wanted to pay a paypal invoice with a non-paypal credit card. I have an account but didn’t want to use it this time.

PayPal has offered no-sign up Web and e-mail payment options, but has not fully disclosed this at their help sites. They don’t even mention it at their phone help site, and their representatives hang up on you when you ask them how to do it. I held on the phone 4 hours and called for 2 weeks before I figured out how to do it (send invoice to non-member and they get option to pay with or without signing up). One CSR was really mean, he said, “I won’t defend our payment procedures” and hung up. Three others hung up when they didn’t have the answer.

I called back and complainted about this problem to a PayPal supervisor. I complained about their lack of openness about the non-sign up invoice information, and told the supervisor that I didn’t want this to be associated with my account.

She ignored my request for privacy, said she was using the account anyway, and that she used the caller-id on my phone to determine what account to log the complaint with. Then she hung up, as I protested. This is a major problem, a violation of privacy and a security flaw in their system.

So, no matter who calls PayPal customer service from a phone register to a particular account, they associate that call with the account linked to that phone number. So a stranger could call them from your phone and harm your relationship with PayPal, perhaps get your account canceled.

PayPal is an example of Silicon Valley arrogance, it would be good to organize and schedule consumer blackout-boycotts of these companies until they comply with banking standards. Can you imagine a bank hanging up on you when you ask them how to pay one of their invoices? I am looking at alternatives to PayPal for the first time since they went public.

PayPal is the west coast equivalent to AOL when it comes to rogue providers. They are anti-consumer, which is where GM was with the Corvair, Ford was with the Explorer and where the diet pill folks were with that killer-drug that was removed (Phen-phen) from the market.

I have had it with PayPal’s abuse, lies, and violations, and I will be filing complaints with the FTC, FCC, state attorney general and other agencies. PayPal needs to be checked, seriously checked. Spread the word — the more people are aware that you can send a non-sign up invoice by sending it to a non-paypal e-mail, the more PayPal will be forced to comply with customer demands.